

NASMYTH, ALEXANDER 



NASMYTH, JAMES. 



I 



May 18JS, when he 6rt left hi. nature country for Ireland, to December 

 1831, when he returned from America, where he travelled about 3000 

 mile*, amounted lo rather more than 671'., a mm wonderfully mode- 

 rato when it i* connidered what be accomplished during the three yean 

 and trvm month* over which the expenditure WH spread, the sums 

 received by him from friend* who took an interest in his effort* 

 amounted only to 439/., leaving a deficiency of 232f. to be provided 

 from hi* own very scanty resources. Pecuniary difficulties however, 

 could not repress bin ardour, and it wo* not long before be 

 Pan* and established a city mission there, and set on foot a similar 

 institution at Havre. 



He subsequently resided for some time in Glasgow, and, in March 

 1835, fulfilled a long-cherished intention of removing bis residence 

 to London, for the purpose of establishing a city mission. So many 

 difficulties intervened here, that to all but himself his enterprise 

 seemed hopelen : he persevered however, and eventually surmounted 

 all obstacles. Tlie Loudon City MUtion was therefore commenced, in 

 conformity with the design of its founder, on n bumble scale. At 

 first only four missionaries were employed, with salaries amounting in 

 the * hole to '2971. per annum ; but such has been the progress of the 

 institution that, in 1850, at the date of the twenty-first annual report, 

 the number of missionaries employed was 320, and the expenditure in 

 salaries alone fur the preceding year li;vl been upwards of 28,0001., exclu- 

 sive of all other expenses incident to the mission. In the same year the 

 number of dou iciliary visits, and visits to hospitals, asylums, and 

 othi-r | lace a where the poor and ignorant are congregated together, 

 paid by the missionaries, amounted to 1,499,891, of which 174,321 

 were to th<> sick and dying. In a large majority of the latter class 

 of vUiU the agents of the city mission were the only individuals by 

 whom religious instruction ami consolation were carried to th bed- 

 side of the sufferers. The distribution of Bibles and religious tracts, 

 the holding of religious services in neglected neighbourhoods, and 

 various other benevolent operations, are also carried on by the mis- 

 sionaries. During the year referred to 11.564 children had been sent 

 to school by the missionaries, C544 copies of the Scriptures and 

 4 religious pamphlets and tracts had been distributed, and 

 73,949 volumes lent to read. By gaining the confidence even of the 

 moat wretched and abandoned, the missionaries have obtained access, 

 and often with the best results, to haunts of misery and vice which 

 no other agency has been able to rench. They therefore constitute a 

 kind of moral police, of the efficacy of whiA the reports of the society 

 and the documents published monthly in the ' London City Mission 

 Magazine ' afford abundant proof. 



The establishment of so excellent an institution might have been 

 supposed sufficient to satisfy the desirea even of Nasmith ; but such 

 was not his feeling. He could not rest without devieing further means 

 of usefulness, and therefore he set on foot several kindred societies, 

 one of which was the London Female Mission, a society designed to 

 operate upon the condition of pioititution in the metropolis, both 

 by reclaiming women, and by preserving destitute fema'es from degra- 

 dation. The Engliih Monthly Tract Society and the Adult School 

 Soci-ty alto appear on the long list of philanthropic institutions 

 t.Ubluh. d by him ; but that to which he appears to have been most 

 personally devoted in his latter years was a society originally called 

 the Hrki-lj and Foreign Mission, and intended to promote the establish- 

 ment of city missions and other similar associations. The name was 

 afterward* altered to the British and Foreign Town Mission, hut which 

 subsequently, under the modified title of the Town Missionary and 

 Scripture Reader*' Society, chiefly confined it* efforts to the establish- 

 ment of local iniaaiona. In connection witli this society Nosmith 

 viiited and firmed missions nt Cambridge, Birmingham, Manchester, 

 Leeds, Bradford, Halifax, Huddrrsfield, Wakefielil, and York; and 

 subsequently visited Scotland for the same purpose, lie afterwards 

 travelled in Wales, revUited Dublin, and made several other tour* in 

 various parts of England, of which Dr. Campbell gives fall particulars. 

 During these efforts he wss supported, but in a very humble n 

 carious waj, by the contributions of a few friends who appreciated bis 

 character and services, but he was often reduced to gnat pecuniary 

 difficulties, the effect of which, coupled with incessant exertion, und.-i 

 mined hit health ; and at length he was seized at Ouildford, whitlu r 

 he had gone with the intention of establishing a Town Mission, with 

 a sudden illness, of which bo died on the 17th of November 1839. 

 His body was brought to London, and interred in the presence of a 

 large assemblage of ministers and others of various denominations, in 

 I'.uuhill Fi-ldn burying Krone. 1 : and a subscription of 24202. was very 

 shortly raised by his friend* for the benefit of his widow and children. 

 A vory full account of hi* remarkable career is giv. n in Dr. 

 bell's ' Memoirs of Dsvi-1 Ka>mith; hi* labours and travels in Great 

 Britain, France, the L'niled Slatw, and Canada,' 8vo, 1844. 



NA8MV1II, AI.KXANDI I!, a <li-tingtiished Scotch landscape- 

 painter, was born at Edinburgh in 17if. Ho came early to London, 

 where he wss for mine time the pupil of Allan Kamsay, painter to 

 Oeorge III. He r. tided aft iWKid* several ymr in Home, where he 

 ludie I portrait, history, and landscape. He nettled in Edinburgh as 

 a portrait paint- r, and his well known portrait of Hobert Bum* U the 

 i.nly authentic likcne** of the great poet Having however a decided 

 Ust for Undcpe-|*intiiig, he ultimately ..;.,.. \ l,iru>lf to this 

 branch ; but much of his time was occupied In teaching, in which he 



was very successful. His landscapes, which are very numerous, are, 

 many of them, reminiscences of Italian scenery, or compositions in 

 which themes from the classic land of art aro treated in a manner 

 founded on a careful study of the famous old landscape-paiuters. 

 They are wanting contequently in originality and vigour ; but they 

 are picturesque and simple, have much quiet beauty and grace, and 

 ore remarkably popular with his countrymen. In England his works 

 were comparatively little known. Mr. Nasmyth was a favourite in 

 society, and toe leading teacher in art of the higher classes of Sc' 

 bis practice was ample, and his emoluments large. During bis later 

 years he was commonly looked up to as the patri.irch of Scottish art ; 

 and he not only took much interest in the proceedings of the artistic 

 societies of Edinburgh, but often raised an influential voice in respect 

 to the alterations making in that city, many of the more ad: 

 improvements in which are said to have been suggested by him. He 

 died at Edinburgh in 1840, in his eighty-third year. 



Soon after bis returu from Italy Mr. Nasuiyth married the sister 

 of Sir James Foulis of Woodbal), Colintots, by whom he hod a large 

 family, and he lived to fee all bin children distinguish themselves by 

 talents of no common order. His eldest sou, Patrick, the landscape- 

 painter, and a younger eon, James, the celebrated engine -r, are 

 > separately below. His daughters, like their brothers, all 

 possessed both natural taste and artistic culture ; and all of ti.eu., 

 we believe, at some period or other, practised painting as a pro- 

 fession. The eldest, Anne, prior to her marriage with Mr. li-in > tt, 

 the engineer of Manchester, had acquired considerable notice for hi 

 very charming little picturesque rustic scenes. Another daughter, 

 the wife of Sir Walter Scott's friend Terry, after the death of her 

 husband, also successfully practised painting prior to her second 

 maniige. Barbara and Margaret Nasmyth have likewise been honour- 

 ably recognised as painters of very graceful and pleasing landscapes ; 

 whilst Jane Nasinytb, the youngest of the gifted sisters, stands 

 perhaps at the head of contemporary female landscape painters : her 

 " wild woods and bosky bourns" displaying, with the quiet truth aud 

 refinement characteristic of the Nasmyth pictures, a firmness and 

 precision of handling not usual among English lady painters. 



NASMYTH, PATRICK, or PETER, as he is frequently called in 

 catalogues and biographies, Peter being merely the Scottish familiar 

 equivalent for Patrick, eldest con of Alexander Nasmyth, was born 

 in Edinburgh, in 17''>. He show,d an tfrly decided predilection 

 for landscape painting, aud his zeal in the pursuit of his favourite 

 art left him little opportunity as he evinced little inclination for 

 acquiring other instruction. Early in life he injured his right hand, 

 and learned to use the pencil and brush with equal rcadinesa with his 

 left At the age of twenty he went to London, and his productions 

 soon became very popular, obtaining for him the designation of the 

 English Hobbimo. It cannot be s.iid however that he had much in 

 common with the great Flemish ir.a-ter, excepting the minuteness of 

 bis details in landscape scenery. He had not the same firmnrss aud 

 largeness of touch as llobbima, producing his results by an ap| :ir. m 

 multiplicity of detail. He improved however ou the style ol his 

 father, and his pictures have less of the spotted chalky character, 

 which, from its having been followed by othtr members of ti>ia clever 

 family, is somewhat characteristic of what is called ' The Nasmyth 

 School.' Notwithstanding a certain air of feebleness, Peter Na-my th's 

 landscapes are eminently pleasing. Though be often painted Scottish 

 scenes, and his works are perhaps more admired in his native country 

 than elsewhere, the character of his landscapes is emineutly English. 

 His styla was not sufficiently massive properly to represent the wild 

 mountain scenery and striking atmospheric peculiarities of Scotland. 

 Light clouds, sunshine, i-mooth water, or small pattering brooks, 

 meadows, gentle rising ground, and green trees, are the object* which 

 his style was best calculated to represent. He wan passionately att 

 to bis art, and the eagerness with which he pursued it, as well as a 

 certain recklessness Of disposition, led him to expose hin< 

 and inclement weather, by which be caught cohl, which in the first 

 instance brought on deafness, and ultimately resulted in consumption. 

 I in lodgings in South Lambeth, London, on the 17th of Auguft 

 1831, during n memorable thunder-storm, which his ruling ] 

 for the contemplation of natural objects ' strong in death ' he was 

 lifted up in bis bed to behold, that he might as he said make notes of 

 the 'eff. CIH' in hi memory. 



* NASMYTH, .'AMK.S, practical engineer, inventor of the sUaui- 

 hammcr, steam pile-driver, and many other self-acting tools, was born 

 in Edinburgh, on the 19th of August 1803. He is one of a remark- 

 able family, two of whom, his father Alexander Nasmyth, aud his 

 elder brother 1'atrick Nasmjth, are noticed above. .Mr. JauM 

 Nasmyth when very young had a liking for mechanism, choosingto 

 rpcnd much of his time about workshops, where he was allowed to 

 " lend a hand " in any work that ws in progress. His father having 

 previously acquired a taste of a similar kind, was accustomed to divert 

 himself from the more ed. ntary occupation of his art in a small 

 workshop which he bad fitted up; and this place afforded the sou the 

 means of putting into form ideas which ho had gathered out of doors. 

 He thus acquired dexterity in the manipulation of tools, as well as that 

 habit of extemporising resources which appears to form the true basis 

 of the efficiency of the mechanical engineer. Attendance at the High 

 School was an interruption to the pursuits of the young Nasmyth not 



